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Family members can share the same experience while remembering different details, emotions, and meanings.

Music can bring back the people, places, and feelings tied to meaningful moments.

Making music together can build closeness without creating identical memories.

Family songs gather new meaning across generations and become part of who we are.

My father would drum his hands on the dinner table. Someone answered with a fork or spoon. Soon, everyone had found a rhythm, and dinner had become a family percussion circle.

Ask my sisters and me about those moments now, and we may each remember something slightly different. One may remember how playful it felt. Another may remember it as simply part of dinner with Dad. I remember the possibility of it all, the way one small beat could suddenly become music.

We were sitting at the same table, but we did not necessarily hear the same thing. Maybe that was part of the gift.

Father’s Day invites us to remember, but families rarely carry one perfectly agreed-upon version of the past. We take away different details and feelings, even from moments we shared.

There always seemed to be music somewhere in our house: the Beatles, the Beach Boys, a Broadway cast album. On long drives, we argued over who got which part in Les Misérables. Kazoos appeared at birthdays, retirement parties, and other occasions that probably did not require kazoos.

Dad taught us to jitterbug, too.

One sister remembers standing on his feet as a child, then learning to let him lead as he........

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